Liberal Democrats who want to understand how the party runs can easily become confused by the range of offices, executives, committees, subcommittees and working groups that they encounter. Some have grand sounding names and are made up of “the great and the good”. Others are little heard of with powers unknown. One of the most obscure is probably the English Council.

I confess to being a bit of a nerd when it comes to matters of party organisation, but even I have found myself asking – “what on earth does English Council do?”

Last year, through my regional party, I was elected as a member of it in an attempt to answer this question. As I very much doubt that I am alone in my confusion, and following discussions with co-editor Mark Pack, I’ve also been asked to take on the role of “English Council correspondent” for Liberal Democrat Voice. I will be writing the occasional article here to highlight the work of this little known but important party body, and thought it appropriate to start with a brief overview of the role of the English Council as I understand it.

The Liberal Democrats are a federal party. That is to say the party is a federation made up of three components; the state parties of England, Scotland and Wales. (The party has chosen not to establish a state party in Northern Ireland – instead recognising the Alliance party as our sister party in that part of the UK.) While some functions are reserved at the federal level, the party’s constitution devolves most powers and functions to the state parties.

While this arrangement is quite straightforward for Scotland and Wales – in England things are a bit more complicated. In theory the Liberal Democrats in England remain an autonomous body. In practice, in many areas, they have chosen to either pass their powers and responsibilities back to the Federal party or devolved them down to the English regions.

Unlike the Scottish and Welsh state parties there is no annual English conference. The English party has conferred its powers to make policy onto the Federal party, resulting in the current situation where our Spring and Autumn federal conferences can make policy in areas that affect England, or the UK as a whole, but not in those that affect Scotland and Wales only.

Again, unlike the Scottish and Welsh state parties, the Liberal Democrats in England currently employ no staff. This means that most of the practical implementation and administration of the responsibilities of the English party are in fact carried out by employees of the Federal party. At the grassroots, support for local parties and council groups, and the coordination of campaigning activities, tends to be done by regional parties and bodies such as the Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors, with, of course, input from the Campaigns Department. So in many areas of activity the English party itself is somewhat peripheral. This perhaps explains why there is a general lack of knowledge and understanding of the bodies that make up the English party amongst the wider Liberal Democrat membership.

The English Council is the sovereign body of the Liberal Democrats in England and does have some important functions. Made up of representatives from each of the regional parties, as well as representatives from Liberal Youth, it currently has 142 members and meets twice a year – the meeting held in October or November being its AGM.

The English Council elects the Chair of the English party each year, who is also the English Vice President of the Federal party and represents England on the Federal Finance and Administration Committee. The Council also elects representatives onto a number of other federal bodies including the Federal Policy Committee, the Federal Executive, and the Federal Conference Committee. There is also an English Council Executive whose role is to organise the work of the English Council and take actions when needed between meetings of the Council.

My general impression is that the English Council mostly sees its role as being one of coordinating the activities of regional parties and as the writer of the rule book for how the party in England operates. It is responsible for approving the membership rules for the English party, the model constitution for local parties, and the rules for the selection of parliamentary candidates in England.

It also manages the finances of the English party, deciding how party funds, mostly generated from membership income, are distributed amongst local and regional parties and other bodies.

Probably the most significant piece of work that the English Council does is that to do with the process of approval and selection of parliamentary candidates and candidates for other public offices. As well as deciding on the rules, it has a major co-ordinating role, working with regional parties to manage the process of candidate selection. It does this work through the English Candidates Committee.

The next meeting of the English Council is roughly a month away, on 23 June in London.

The preliminary agenda for that meeting is rather thin. Aside from the usual reports from officeholders and representatives on other bodies there isn’t much on it other than a proposed constitutional change related to the organisation of local parties. I will report on this in a post tomorrow.

* Andy Strange is a member of the Lib Dems' English Council. He blogs at Strange Thoughts.

13 Comments

What does the English Party do at the moment not provide a candidates office but spend a lot of money on meetings. Lets practice what we preach on red tape and get rid of a lot of the English Party bureaucracy. English regional party chairs could elect one of their number to sit on the FE whilst Federal Conference Reps in England could be balloted on who is the English rep on the Federal committees.

I understand that FFAC were told that running the English Party costs about £40,000 if we can’t think of more useful things a campaigning party could do with that kind of money then we are in the wrong line of business.

The struggles of the party to operate a workable and democratic federal structure mirror the problems and dilemmas of the country as a whole. We talk a lot about the Scottish question, but he real problem is England. It’s too big to be distinguished clearly from the federal whole, but regional identities are too weak to present a viable alternative.

The only useful thing the English Council does is take responsibility for constitutions and rules. But there must be an easier way of doing this – all that is needed is a session or two at federal Conference. The membership of the EC (which includes me) is laughably unrepresentative. The age and experience of its membership does give it some moral authority when looking at rule changes – but in fact debate has been entirely inadequate. It needs to go.

There sounds like a concensus here, English Council should be disbanded and its few useful functions either passed upwards or outwards to the Regions. English Regions need to be far more responsible, and should now be looking within at how their structures work.
I am pleased to see that the Local Party question is being discussed by EC,(ie enabling local members to decide what the format of the party should be in their area, whether the Parliametary constituency, the County or the principal Council are should serve as the basis of their local party unit), and in order to progress we need to release the shackles on our ways of thinking. Perhaps we need to enable local party ‘units’ to join together to create a structure somewhere between the current local party and the current region, – if they want to.

Peter, we have something like that in Manchester – a “steering group” for the constituencies covered by the City Council, called the City Party. It’s a terrible idea in practice, used only for inaction. Any activity that somebody wants to block at (local party, city party) level just gets deferred to the (city party, local parties), and nothing gets done. I’d be all for the Manchester parties merging, but the two-tier structure is highly ineffective.

The Buckingham Constituency Lib Dems are putting a candidate forward at the next General Election to challenge the Speaker. The Regional Party has been made aware of this. The English Council should be deciding if they are going to endorse this or pick a fight with the local party. The local party have been through all the usual channels to have this move endorsed as official policy but been ignored. Hence the decision to go ahead whatever the Westminster establishment says.

Thank you for this information about the English Council. This seems at last to be a glimmer of recognition that the English Council needs to become more connected with the party members it has dominion over. English Council is far from democratic – ordinary members of the party are not informed or consulted about matters being debated – even local party officers and Conference reps are left in the dark. English Council does not debate public policy at all, as that role is passed up to the Federal bodies. If the English Council is simply disbanded, and not replaced by something better, this will not improve matters. There should be an English Conference to debate policy affecting England in particular, and there should be an English Party Executive.

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